Downtown Zoning

New! Updates to the SPI-1 Downtown District Sign Code

Central Atlanta Progress partnered with the City of Atlanta Office of Planning to update the SPI-1 Downtown District sign ordinance. The changes were adopted by Atlanta City Council on December 6, 2010.

If you have specific questions, concerns, comments or suggestions regarding the proposed ordinance contact Jennifer Ball at (404) 522-3344 or jball at atlantadowntown.com.

Downtown Atlanta's Special Public Interest (SPI) Zoning District

All of Downtown Atlanta is guided by one consistent, expanded and revolutionized zoning code. The text and maps adopted by Atlanta City Council in September 2007 supersede all previous regulations for SPI-1, SPI-2 and SPI-13, as well as a handful of C-4 and C-5 properties that were re-zoned to SPI-1.

Background

Central Atlanta Progress partnered with the City of Atlanta to review and update the zoning regulations that governed the physical growth and development of Downtown. The need to evaluate the Downtown zoning had been identified repeatedly through multiple comprehensive planning efforts that CAP and others had sponsored. To advance this effort, CAP engaged a group of stakeholders to work hand-in-hand with staff and a consultant team to draft a proposed zoning code, as well as supporting documents that became recommendations to the City of Atlanta regarding specific changes to the existing Downtown districts.

First drafts of the proposed updated SPI-1 Zoning Code and the Downtown Development Standards were originally released in late 2002. Meetings were then held with groups of stakeholders in which the recommendations were presented, questions were answered and participants provided great feedback. These questions, concerns, comments and suggestions were incorporated into the adopted zoning code. The Imagine Downtown plan also helped to further refine the original draft recommendations to ensure that the proposed zoning changes were consistent with the Imagine Downtown vision.

For a quick summary of the changes or more details about the differences between the new SPI-1 code and the previous SPI-1, SPI-2 and SPI-13 zoning codes review the following documents: